ZAPPANALE 2017 - PART 04 - FAMILIAR STUFF AND NICE DISCOVERIES

As always, there's bands that you know and have heard or seen before, but each Zappanale there are a couple of bands that you probably never have heard about and that will blow your socks off.
It's the combination of familiar stuff and nice discoveries that makes Zappanale great.

When discussing this with my friends, I tell them that there's one band that really needs to play at Zappanale and that's Flat Earth Society.
This 14-piece Belgian big band combines avant-garde, eclectic compositions with superb technical skills.

And the band comes with extras as a lot of the musicians are part of other fine groups and ensembles: Pierre Vervloesem, Teun Verbruggen, Michel Mast, Bart Maris and Bruno Vansina (to name a few) all have very interesting projects going on.
Guitar player Pierre Vervloesem should need no introduction. He's a band on his own.
Drummer Teun Verbruggen has numerous experimental projects going on;
Saxophone player Michel Mast performs the music of Raymond Scott with one of his ensembles;
Trumpet player Bart Maris performs solo with loop stations and has too many projects.
Saxophone player Bruno Vansina has a new project called Orchestra Exotica (with music by Martin Denny, Les Baxter,...)

Sure, Zappanale is not a 'big' festival with unlimited financial resources but Zappanale can offer fun times and the best crowd there is.

Did I tell you that Flat Earth Society has a program and an album called "Terms Of Embarrassment", their sort of tribute to Frank Zappa?

So here's the deal. If you know someone who's part of FES (Flat Earth Society), tell them that they should play at Zappanale !